MANCHESTER, N.H. — Hanging out with new pals at a buzzing Manchester taproom, Cate Edwards sounded like any other college student cracking wise over a beer.
Among the topics for debate: Of Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” interviews, which wins the award for most awkward? By consensus, they picked last month’s appearance by Vice President Dick Cheney’s wife, Lynne.
It’s a typical night at the barroom, and no place for a presidential stump speech. And that suits the daughter of Democratic White House hopeful John Edwards just fine.
“I think it helps to have a young person talk about the issues in a way that’s relatable,” Cate Edwards said. “I feel more comfortable talking to them, and I think they feel more comfortable talking to me, because I’m not that well-polished and because I’m just a regular 25-year-old.”
On her first solo campaign trip through New Hampshire, Edwards tooled around the Granite State on Friday and Saturday in a minivan packed with campaign staff, making the case for her father in the most casual of ways.
A second-year Harvard Law School student, Cate Edwards said she and her father disagree on some issues. Some are serious, such as gay marriage. Others, such as whether he should dance in public, not so much. “It’s very dorky,” she joked.
There were no rallies or town-hall meetings on her schedule. Instead, she had coffee with students at a Dartmouth sorority house and drinks at the Manchester bar with other young Democrats and attended a gathering with high school students who won’t even be old enough to vote next year.
“You get a different perspective,” said Alyssa Robins, a 22-year-old senior at Dartmouth and president of a sorority that hosted Edwards. “There’s always an uncertainty about how genuine a candidate is when you’re always seeing them in a political perspective.
“When you get to hear someone your age talk about the person, in a setting like this, it feels more real.”
Edwards has enlisted friends at Harvard, where she is a volunteer at the university’s Legal Aid Bureau representing families facing eviction, to canvass for her father, a former North Carolina senator making his second run for the White House.
On the GOP side, Mitt Romney’s five sons are active participants, blogging and traveling in the “Mitt Mobile.” Other children of the candidates are less visible. Rudy Giuliani is estranged from his two children.
